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  1. Competing Explanations of Competing Explanations: Accounting for Conflict Between Scientific and Folk Explanations.Andrew Shtulman & Cristine H. Legare - 2020 - Topics in Cognitive Science 12 (4):1337-1362.
    Competing Explanations of Competing Explanations: Accounting for Conflict Between Scientific and Folk ExplanationsThis paper focuses on the level of people’s explanatory reasoning. It examines why laypeople prefer folk explanations of various physical or biological phenomena to alternative, well‐understood scientific explanations. Shtulman and Legare call this psychological phenomenon “explanatory co‐existence.” On the basis of new experimental data, they evaluate two possible accounts of explanatory co‐existence, a theory‐based and an associative account, and argue that a theory‐based account is the better supported.
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  • Examining Biological Explanations in Chinese Preschool Children: A Cross-Cultural Comparison.C. H. Legare, H. M. Wellman & L. Zhu - 2013 - Journal of Cognition and Culture 13 (1-2):67-93.
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  • Interdisciplinary and Cross‐Cultural Perspectives on Explanatory Coexistence.Rachel E. Watson-Jones, Justin T. A. Busch & Cristine H. Legare - 2015 - Topics in Cognitive Science 7 (4):611-623.
    Natural and supernatural explanations are used to interpret the same events in a number of predictable and universal ways. Yet little is known about how variation in diverse cultural ecologies influences how people integrate natural and supernatural explanations. Here, we examine explanatory coexistence in three existentially arousing domains of human thought: illness, death, and human origins using qualitative data from interviews conducted in Tanna, Vanuatu. Vanuatu, a Melanesian archipelago, provides a cultural context ideal for examining variation in explanatory coexistence due (...)
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  • Thought Experiments as an Error Detection and Correction Tool.Igor Bascandziev - 2024 - Cognitive Science 48 (1):e13401.
    The ability to recognize and correct errors in one's explanatory understanding is critically important for learning. However, little is known about the mechanisms that determine when and under what circumstances errors are detected and how they are corrected. The present study investigated thought experiments as a potential tool that can reveal errors and trigger belief revision in the service of error correction. Across two experiments, 1149 participants engaged in reasoning about force and motion (a domain with well‐documented misconceptions) in a (...)
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  • How Lay Cognition Constrains Scientific Cognition.Andrew Shtulman - 2015 - Philosophy Compass 10 (11):785-798.
    Scientific cognition is a hard-won achievement, both from a historical point of view and a developmental point of view. Here, I review seven facets of lay cognition that run counter to, and often impede, scientific cognition: incompatible folk theories, missing ontologies, tolerance for shallow explanations, tolerance for contradictory explanations, privileging explanation over empirical data, privileging testimony over empirical data, and misconceiving the nature of science itself. Most of these facets have been investigated independent of the others, and I propose directions (...)
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  • Bewitchment, Biology, or Both: The Co-Existence of Natural and Supernatural Explanatory Frameworks Across Development.Cristine H. Legare & Susan A. Gelman - 2008 - Cognitive Science 32 (4):607-642.
    Three studies examined the co-existence of natural and supernatural explanations for illness and disease transmission, from a developmental perspective. The participants (5-, 7-, 11-, and 15-year-olds and adults; N = 366) were drawn from 2 Sesotho-speaking South African communities, where Western biomedical and traditional healing frameworks were both available. Results indicated that, although biological explanations for illness were endorsed at high levels, witchcraft was also often endorsed. More important, bewitchment explanations were neither the result of ignorance nor replaced by biological (...)
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  • Supernatural Belief in ‘Scientific’ Worldviews?Roosa Haimila, Hanne Metsähinen & Mark Sevalnev - 2024 - Journal of Cognition and Culture 24 (1-2):1-34.
    A ‘scientific worldview’ is commonly seen as contradictory to belief in supernatural forces, and there is little research on the supernatural beliefs of individuals who identify with science. In this article, we investigate the supernatural explanations of science-oriented individuals in domains of fundamental concern (suffering, death, and origins), and how supernatural causality is reconciled with belief in science. The open-ended responses of 387 Finns were analysed. The results show that science-oriented Finns endorsed both religion-related and more secular supernatural beliefs (such (...)
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